On July 10–13, 2017, Lisbon, Portugal welcomed the third meeting of national supervisory groups working as part of the TALIS 2018 secondary education evaluation project. Russia was represented by IOE instructional design & practice experts Elena Chernobai and Daria Tuchkova.

In mid-June 2017, the town of Pushkin near St. Petersburg, Russia welcomed the Fifth International Summer School on Higher Education Research, a joint initiative between the HSE Institute of Education and Peking University’s China Institute for Educational Finance Research. This year, the Summer School focused on higher education and social inequality.

On June 5–6, the HSE Institute of Education welcomed a seminar by the International Academic Consortium working as part of the Key Competencies and New Literacy project, a joint initiative between IOE and Sberbank’s Investment in Future foundation.

The concrete block in the courtyard of the HSE Institute of Education has been a lasting image of the WW2 era. However, last summer, the institute’s staff came up with the idea of turning it into a piece of art. The idea was put forth by Igor Chirikov, Director of the Centre of Sociology of Higher Education, whereby this useless piece of concrete would be transformed into a monument to the ‘anonymous peer reviewer’. Moreover, this idea ended up garnering the most support as a result of an internal vote.

On March 30–31, Paris welcomed a regular OECD meeting of participants in the Education and Social Progress (ESP) international study, which addresses the development of social and emotional skills at school. Russia was represented by a team of experts with the IOE Centre for Monitoring the Quality in Education (CMQE).

On March 5–9, 2017, the U.S. city of Atlanta, Georgia hosted the 2017 Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES). Seeking the most diverse engagement in the venue’s multiple opportunities for expertise exchange, debate, and academic networking, a representative team of experts with IOE’s leading research & advisory centres took part in this year’s CIES event. Presentations were given by Isak Froumin, Oleg Leshukov, Elena Minina, Pavel Sorokin, Zumrad Kataeva, Martin Carnoy, Tatiana Khavenson, and Andrey Zakharov.

In early March, Senior Researcher with IOE Centre for Higher Education Sociology, Pavel SOROKIN, took part in Comparative and International Education Society Annual Conference 2017, which was held in Atlanta, the USA.

Leading expert at the Center for Cultural Sociology and Anthropology of Education participated in the annual conference of the Society for Longitudinal and Life-Course Studies. Her report on the Institute of Education researchers’ expertise was welcomed with interest by the international community of scientists.

On June 17–18, Deans of Schools of Education from leading research universities gathered in the town of Pushkin, near St. Petersburg, Russia. The Summit entitled “Schools of Education at Research Universities: Challenges, Opportunities, Collaboration” was organized by the Institute of Education, Higher School of Economics, and the Graduate School of Education, Peking University.